


The Philosophy of Nature in Music

by cilceon



Category: Philosophy RPF
Genre: Dialogue, Dialogue-Only, Music, Nature, Philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-24 00:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30063630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cilceon/pseuds/cilceon
Summary: A dialogue taking place between Rameau and Rousseau, in which they debate the extent to which music can imitate nature.
Kudos: 2





	The Philosophy of Nature in Music

**Author's Note:**

> I had to write a dialogue (its a fic my lecturer wasn't fooling anyone) for my university's philosophy of art & culture class & I spent too much time on it for it to only be read by a cishet white guy in his 50's so its here now. I know this is drastically different than anything else I've written before & for that I'm sorry.

**Rousseau** : What ultimately is your theory on the fundamental principles of music?

 **Rameau** : Two… two principles. One, harmony is the basis for the melody and the second is that harmony has a natural foundation. I have already said that melody is drawn from harmony to you before.

 **Rousseau:** Yes, yes and _I_ have told you that _Traité d'Harmonie_ still lacks a footing to theoretically justify these innovations – even after all this time.

 **Rameau:** If you would recall that later works of mine formed the values of my system. Which’s main basis is the physical phenomenon of resonance of bodies. Especially in the _Démonstration du principe de l’harmonie_ – which I am sure you are familiar with?

 **Rousseau:** That I am. In it you considered that ‘discovery’ a tipping point within the old musical theory.

 **Rameau:** Mind you that people today agree that this was the origin of the modern theory of harmony.

 **Rousseau:** A fact you have repeated several times.

 **Rameau:** A fact I will gladly repeat several times more.

 **Rousseau:** I would expect nothing less.

 **Rameau:** Hmm, well you see, I believed – and still do, that the ancients did not know the foundation of harmony. although they have made wonders in composing melodies-

 **Rousseau:** They did this blindly? Guided secretly by nature?

 **Rameau:** Yes. I had also noted they counted only the eighth, fourth and fifth as consonances.

 **Rousseau:** Thirds and sixths were considered dissonances yes?

 **Rameau:** Precisely. Where was this understanding when you were young?

 **Rousseau:** Lost within the _Quarrel of the Buffoons_ for a time I believe.

 **Rameau:** Ah, but not in my _Lettre?_

 **Rousseau:** This is not the topic of which we speak. If you wish, we may return to it if–

 **Rameau:** No, no. It is quite all right, thank you.

 **Rousseau:** To better understand your proposal, remind me of the history of consonance and its theory.

 **Rameau:** It was attributed to Pythagoras – his school the discovery that consonant musical intervals relate to plain numerical amounts. In custom, Pythagoras split the into monochord into 2, 3 and 4 parts–

 **Rousseau:** A shame that Zarlino could not make it to our talk, for it was he who inaugurated the modern primacy of harmony in triads. I do wish to speak to him of a problem I have seen.

 **Rameau:** Oh? A problem with Zarlino? Is it being interrupted?

 **Rousseau:** Do not be so crass with me. You know that to separate the string into eight parts assumes that one could also divide it into seven parts. But the proportions involving the number seven do not create consonances nor notes of the diatonic scale. Why, do straightforward numerical ratios as 6:5 and 8:5 produce a consonance, and a 7:6 ratio – that to you and I seem equally simple, not produce it?

 **Rameau:** Is that not why Zarlino proposed the theory of the senary? To which the division goes only up to six?

 **Rousseau:** But why only to six?

 **Rameau:** Ah, you see for several reasons. Because six is the first perfect number, because there are six planets to which you or I had known of, because ‘God’ created the world in six days because there are twice six apostles? Do not forget that Kepler proposed that the consonances would only be obtained for numbers that can divide the circle following a procedure achievable with ruler and compass. One can divide the circle in five, six, eight, and nine parts. Yet not into seven parts? Then there is Gauss, who showed in the 18th century that one can divide the circle into seventeen parts with rule and compass. Not that seventeen does not create consonances.

 **Rousseau:** Not very convincing, if you ask me.

 **Rameau:** I don’t recall asking if you were convinced. Yet, you are right. All of these explanations are unconvincing. For the reason that they do not _clarify_ why the arithmetic relationships produce consonance. After all, they all seem to have quite a numerological character.

 **Rousseau:** But you? For you part, you have always been a man of modern times. Always lacking the patience for numerology. Have you not followed the scientific method of Galileo and Descartes?

 **Rameau:** Humph, my point of change is the finding of the harmonic vibrations of physical bodies made by Joseph Sauveur.

 **Rousseau:** Another whom I wish was free to join us.

 **Rameau:** It seems to me, that you strive for the company of any other than myself.

 **Rousseau:** Perish the thought Rameau, perish the thought.

 **Rameau:** Where was I? Ah yes. A physical object let us say the the string of an instrument–

 **Rousseau:** Why not even a column of air?

 **Rameau:** So be it, _or_ a column of air – vibrates in quite a few ways at the same time, making sounds parallel to those parts of various lengths. As a result, the hearing of a sound always involves these other components.

 **Rousseau:** Which would be harmonics?

 **Rameau:** Indeed. These first harmonics will generate the eighth, the double fifth, the double octave and the third…

 **Rousseau:** This is where you always stop.

 **Rameau:** I stop because the other harmonics are inaudible. I see no point in the inaudible. Though, at times, I wish you would join their ranks.

 **Rousseau:** You wound me.

 **Rameau:** You shall survive I’m sure. Now back to the science of music which is made of repeating the relationships between sounds that correspond to relations which are physical in nature.

 **Rousseau:** For you, it is in developing a pleasant harmony?

 **Rameau:** Or a coherent melody, the musician is reproducing the rules that nature itself has established for the resonance of physical bodies.

 **Rousseau:** So, in what sense Rameau is music is "imitation of nature"?

 **Rameau:** Im glad you asked. First of all, a melody will sound good and be aesthetically satisfying when it is centered on ratios stemmed from the harmony. And harmony – in turn, reproduces the relationships that are built in the very structure of material bodies. Music mimics nature _not_ because it reproduces its concreteness and particularity, _but_ because it reflects universal and necessary laws. I need not remind you Rousseau that I perfectly within the context of classical aesthetics.

 **Rousseau:** And how is that?

 **Rameau:** Take theater and painting, for example. They do not reproduce the solidity and likelihood of events in the world but go after what must inevitably happen. It is not the artist’s duty to tell what happened, but to embody what is possible according to its chances and necessity.

 **Rousseau:** That sounds like something Aristotle would say. Spending too much time at his side, hm?

 **Rameau:** The time that he may spare. I believe musical art is made of merging musical sounds according to the universal principles that nature itself determines for these combinations and manages thereby to please the listener.

 **Rousseau:** In the same way as classical theater shows characters and actions in accordance with the general principles governing the conduct and human passions?

 **Rameau:** In both cases convention and artfulness are involved, but far from moving away from nature. These are tools to correct the facts and reach the deeper nature of what it intends to represent. And what of your subversion Rousseau? Has it changed?

 **Rousseau:** Not, in the slightest.

 **Rameau:** Do go on then.

 **Rousseau:** As I plan to. Nature is no longer the physical, material, spirit, with its unchanging laws, and that mandates an effort of dreaminess to be understood behind the shroud of appearances. Rather, nature is what is immediately given to our experience and especially the passionate and emotional charge that accompanies this experience. Take a child as example. They perceive the objects but not the relationships that connect them. A chikd cannot hear the sweet-tempered harmony of their unity. It is necessary an experience they have not felt. Feelings they have yet experienced to feel.

 **Rameau:** I see. How would a bird’s song cause any grand emotion to one if the twangs of affection and joy are yet unknown? With this the notion of imitation of nature acquires a new meaning in your eyes.

 **Rousseau:** The point is not to imitate the sounds of the forest, for such pure onomatopoeia has no artistic value, but rather to produce by means of the musical accents a facsimile of the emotional states that one experiences before this spectacle. Music imitates not outer objects as the forest, or sea – but the inner feeling produced by the reflection of these objects.

 **Rameau:** And the possibility of this representation is due to your conception of music as the closest form of the original language focused on the communication of passions?

 **Rousseau:** Precisely. If music has its origin in the expressive accents of human voice that serve to join emotions, it follows instantly the priority of melody over harmony, which acquires a merely auxiliary role in enhancing the expressive melodic line and should not intrude in its way or be noticed by itself.

 **Rameau:** Ah, I fear you and I may never reach a consensus on the matter – surpassing that most cursory level in which the squabble between advocates of Italian and French music unfold.

 **Rousseau:** This debate, and even the debate over the primacy of melody or harmony, appears as mere outcomes of a deeper change of reference: the very conception of that nature which is to be imitated. Wouldn’t you agree?

 **Rameau:** For once, fully.


End file.
